Reviews of Sel Marin

I normally don't like acquatics, but had heard and read so many positive reviews of Sel Marin, I had to order a sample. I am somewhat skeptical how I would find this scent as I have the Gulf of Mexico just outside my door.

While not exactly an acquatic, Sel Marin is one of the very best near acquatics I've encountered. The opening is salty with green melon and cucumber beneath the surface. It is very pleasant and I must admit ocean like. I never got the cleaning fluid or fish smell other reviews have mentioned. 6hrs longevity and average sillage.

I like Sel Marin very much and am saving the rest of my sample for hotter weather. It takes a real special fragrance that is outside the norm for me to spend $150 on a bottle, but this one is probably going in the collection very soon.

3/19/15 - Purchased a decant. Very happy with this fragrance and I can't wait to wear it this summer.

goes on with a slightly 'toilet fresh' bergamot, herb and cucumber sort of smell. Not unpleasant but quite common as a scent

... which then quickly softens out as the salt note takes over, this is my favourite part of the fragrance, very nice like salt drying in the hot sun

before drying down into a long-lived nutty cedar/vetiver sort of note which is also quite pleasant and masculine and lasts 6hrs+ on me.

Personally I prefer the smell of Creed's Erolfa to this - BUT I would recommend buying this over the Erolfa any day because Sel Marin actually lasts a decent amount of time and justifies the price tag.

I found this fragrance pretty interesting. Itís more like an environment than a noticeable scent. Of course you can smell the aquatic salty note and thereís the licorice somewhere in the middle, but itís all very subdued and atmospheric. I increased the number of sprays from my sample, but just got a little more sea breeze, but then after about 8 hours I was overwhelmed with a nauseating salty-sea-syrup smell and had to scrub it off.

I think this is worth trying, and for folks living away from the ocean itíd probably be a nice transport. But since I live near the ocean, itís a little redundant and too simple for me.

I bought a decant of Sel Marin because I wanted to try out the "Top Two" aquatics, the other being Creed's Erolfa, and settle on a signature scent that represents my Atlantic Canada seaside life. While I fell in love with Erolfa, I wanted to know what Sel Marin was like because of the high praise it gets on Basenotes.

As it progresses, a sharp metallic note emerges (Salt I suppose, but it smells like a stainless steel counter) and the spiciness remains. The spice reminds me of a combination of Pepper and Allspice, and it eventually eclipses the "Salt" and dominates.

Seaweed emerges, but it's more like a very realistic algae wrapped in a wisp of an ocean breeze. To be honest, it reminds me a lot of when I would clean my fish tank as a child.

While I'm sorry that Sel Marin didn't live up to it's praise, I'm glad that I got it out of the way and can now buy Erolfa without worrying about what could have been.

Update:

This past summer I spent a day at the beach. Upon returning home, I sniffed my skin, and to my complete surprise... I smelled Sel Marin. The combination of sand, dried salt water, sunscreen, and whatever else my skin had absorbed that day was a perfect combination that instantly made me think of this scent that I'd dismissed months earlier.